No More Media Excuses

Well. Just a little while ago I received the following email and I was outraged. I think my response sums it up pretty clearly, don’t you?

Morning,I was wondering if you’d be around for a chat over the phone this morning about a story we’re covering.We’re going to be talking to Katie Hopkins who has come out and said that she wouldn’t employ an overweight person as they’re all lazy….Wondered if you’d be up for challenging this remark?Can you call me on [redacted]?Look forward to hearing from you.Natasha BatemanProducerMornings with Adrian Goldberg

And my response:

Natasha,

Katie Hopkins and her ignorant, bigoted attitudes are not worth me getting out of bed for, let alone making a long distance phone call from Australia to the UK for. It shows an astonishing lack of respect from you to expect me to respond to someone who so openly hates people like me. In fact, it is completely shameful that you would even have someone like that on your radio show AT ALL and expect your listeners to tolerate it. Would you allow someone who would discriminate on the grounds of gender, sexuality or race on your show to spout their bigotry? Would you ask a woman, a gay person or a person of colour to also appear on your show with someone who is going to openly spout hate at them? I would hope not, so why would you ask a fat person to participate in such a programme?

We are led to believe that the BBC is one of the quality broadcasters of the world. Yet you still entertain the notion that it is acceptable to allow people who openly and unashamedly discriminate against other human beings to have air time on your shows to promote their hateful, ignorant attitudes, and that the people who are the victims of their hate are in some way obligated to spend their time responding to them. That is not the mark of a quality broadcasting service. It is the mark of gutter media trying to stir up ratings.

Please do not waste my time in future unless you are willing to ensure that I am treated with the basic dignity and respect that I deserve as a human being, by both your programme and any guests you intend to have on it.

Yours sincerelyKath Read

It’s time we started calling out the media for this kind of behaviour. It is time we responded to these media outlets and told them that they are both wasting our time and are deeply disrespectful to expect us to tolerate such hateful attitudes, let alone respond to them. The media have stitched up so many of we fat activists over the years, that it’s time we name our terms and start valuing ourselves as worthy human beings, as busy people who have better things to do in our lives than be subjected to people like Katie Hopkins and their bigotry.

No more excuses about “it’s what people want to hear” and “it’s just debate”. We don’t want to hear people like Katie Hopkins any more. If people want to hear someone like Katie Hopkins spouting bigotry in the media, then they should be ashamed of themselves. Not to mention that our rights as human beings are not up for debate with anyone. People don’t get to “debate” whether we fat people deserve to be treated with basic dignity and respect. We do, as do all human beings.

yay! This reminds me a lot of when biologists started to refuse debate with creationists. It just gives the other side the appearance of credibility, like they deserve to debate any silly notion that comes into their head with any person of their choosing. No one owes someone else their time and energy, especially when they are just saying ignorant/hateful things. rock on kath!

[BLAH BLAH BLAH BIGOTED RUBBISH HOW FAT PEOPLE DON’T DESERVE HUMAN RIGHTS COS THEY’RE ALL LAZY IT’S A CHOICE JUST GET OFF THE SOFA AND PUT DOWN THE CHEESEBURGER FATTY YOU CAN’T BE DISCRIMINATED AGAINST COS YOU’RE JUST A GROSS FATTY AND A BUNCH OF OTHER BIGOTED BILE]*

*may be edited because Adam’s actual comment was a steaming pile of shite that basically said all of the above.

Kath, Love your pointed, articulate, and courageous response to this bottom-feeder. You are right on! I am going to re-blog this on BigBodyBeautiful. Thank you for fighting the good fight, my sister in size-acceptance.

Katie Hopkins isn’t so well known here in the States but I know enough to know she’s full of crap and isn’t worth the time of day. Also, I sent you an email about 2 weeks ago, not sure you got it? If not, can you email me at sr71chick at gmail dot com? Thanks so much!

I tried to get on to post a blog on Fatuosity’s site, but couldn’t get through. (So if you can share this if you want or can, etc.) But anyways, since I don’t live in Australia (waah!) or the UK (waah!), I haven’t had the dubious “pleasure” of ever seeing this show, but it sounds too damned much like the trash they call day-time “talk shows” here in the good ol’ US of A. It sounds like these media people were looking for – forget scapegoats – more like PUNCHING BAGS! I mean, my god! What are these people thinking when they bring people on a show like this to ostensibly present a “fair, balanced view” of a hot topic only to turn the hapless guests into the equivalent of pinatas (hit it hard enough and maybe some candy will fall out!) As for trolls like Adam, too bad THEY couldn’t be put on a show like this and whacked around some. Maybe it would knock that loose screw back into place!

Thank you all for your support. I hope each and every one of you remember that you DON’T owe anyone a response when they present you with fat hate and discrimination. And if you feel like saying “Fuck you!” at someone who does that, then I think they deserved it.

And until we keep telling the media that this kind of behaviour from them is unacceptable, they’re going to keep doing it. No more treating us like we owe them something!

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